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POEMS 

BY 

CAMPBELL MASON 



POEMS 



BY 

CAMPBELL MASON 



NEW YORK 

THE COSMOPOLITAN PRESS 

1912 






Copyright, 1912, by 

The Cosmopolitan Press 



©CI.A.3a7;i85 



TO 

FLORENCE CARTIER 



CONTENTS 

LOVE LYRICS 

PAGE 

At Parting 7 

The Re-meeting 8 

Those Were the Days lo 

I've Come to Say Good-bye ii 

Metamorphosis 12 

Parallel Roads 13 

Ship of Passionate Thoughts 14 

The Guiding Star 15 

Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehen^ Farewell ... 15 

Away, Away Beyond the Gray Horizon ... 16 

What Life Means to me 17 

The Closed Door 18 

When the Dawn Comes 19 

A Boating Fantasy 19 

Like Your Face Each Season's Flowers ... 20 

Impossibilities 21 

Interchangeability 22 

This Is the Flower You Gave Me 23 

SONNETS 

The Language of Meredith* 27 

Shelley 2y 

On Reading Dickens 28 

Maurice Hewlett 28 

The Bridal Wreath 29 

SERIOUS MELODIES 

Agamemnon to the Assembled Heroes ... 33 

Last Words of a King of Sea-Vikings .... 35 

The Song of Old Men 37 



CONTENTS 



SERIOUS MELODIES (Continued) page 

A Rocky Mountain Sunset 38 

Noblesse 39 

John Hay 40 

Overheard at the Shrine 42 

Oh, How I Grieve for Every Summer .... 43 

Courage 44 

A Spring Song 44 

The Heart's Winter 45 

Destiny 45 

Hurried Lines Written in an Office .... 46 

The Mountain King 47 

Low in the West Creeps the Sun 48 

Ignis Fatuus 48 

When Life Was All a Dream 49 

Inscrutable Providence 50 

A Winter Scene 50 

"Ayvwo-Tos 51 

The Song of the Bell 53 

"Cramming" 54 

The Toreador 55 

G^a's Apostrophe to Dian 56 

The Aristocracy of Ease 58 

Tread Lightly on This Spot 60 

Speculation 63 

Song to Prometheus in Winter 64 

LIGHTER VERSE 

Lament of the Universal Lover 67 

Society's Reply 68 

Eileen 69 



LOVE LYRICS 



AT PARTING 

I HAVE covered your body v^ith kisses, 

I have bathed that dear bosom in tears, 
As we shared in out joys together, 

As we shared in our griefs and our fears; 
And the riddle is, which was the sweeter, — 

As visions of both will arise, — 
The pulsating charms of your Parian arms, 

Or the sympathy there in your eyes. 

For never depression had sought me, 

But you had an anodyne near; 
And never a head pillowed softer 

On a breast so more splendidly dear; 
And never swan eyes so effulgent, 

Or hands fluttered tenderly, quite — 
I must not perpend, lest my reason have end. 

An existence withouten your light. 

If the earth had stood still in that heaven. 

And, pausing, all time had destroyed, 
That period could not have buried. 

Those moments we two have enjoyed: 
For they on their shimmering pinions, 

Like birds on their own airs would rise, 
To an inchoate clime, lacking nought but a time 

To adjust orbit-paths in its skies. 

Then these moments triumphant, remembered, — 
Not alone for their sweet, but their tears, — 

Its time would become and the minutes 
Be magnified into its years; 
7 



8 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

For into one second of ours, 

A world of exchanges was pressed, 
Sufficing a year in a commoner sphere, 

Or in a less sentient breast. 

Or fell the last night on the planet, 

Apart — and yet straight would we hold. 
From the others unseeing and frantic. 

To the Judgment-Seat, jeweled and gold. 
For your presence that emulates noonday. 

Would light us a path thro' the gloom ; — 
The judged would wake, and your radiance take 

For the light dawning bright after doom. 

All too few that affinitive bosom 

Discover, or know it when found — 
By the blindness of one unperceiving. 

Or the other in diffidence bound: 
But we knew it, and felt it, and proved it. 

Where one blossom sprang saw v/e ten — 
And in ages unworn, when our souls are reborn, 

We shall meet, and shall know it — again. 



THE RE-MEETING 

We have loved, we have tarried and parted, 

We have drunk each of each to the dregs; 
We have lived in a lifetime an hundred. 

Till the Now of the Past mutely begs: 
And the Future is dead as the Present, 

If the Now is turned beggared away; 
For the future can tone to the past all its own, 

And make of the present its day. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 9 

At the behest of one high and mighty 

You left me to sail overseas, 
To learn how to rival the songsters 

That carol in pullulate trees; 
And the heights, once aspired and envied, 

You won, and you left far behind — 
I toiled with mine own, lacking you, more than lone, 

With a Fortune as bright, but less kind. 

And the seconds and minutes and hours, 

They glide in their pregnancy by, 
A-sweeping you high to attainment — 

But, oh ! where am I, where am I ! 
And expectant my ego stands striving 

In vain hypoborean zones 
To glimpse ; oh, a balm patience has for the calm, 

But her fetters ambition disowns. 



And yet laurel-covered you seek me. 

With beauty by triumph enhanced — 
So I can forget mine endeavor 

To learn how yours can be advanced: 
For greatly-receiving can balance 

Accounts with who greatly bestows. 
By striving to find the collateral kind 

Of currency, welcome to those. 

The sea of ambition is studded. 

With sails of the argonauts fair; 
And some of the argosies boldly 

Flaunt pennants of ebony there: 
So why on the struggle continue. 

When pirates keep watch o'er the seas? — 
Ephemeral earth yielded me all her worth, 

With your love — so, then, what matters these? 



10 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

This haven famiHar, this bosom, 

This mould of my nocturnal self, 
The syncope of our affection 

Has rendered more precious than pelf. 
The shallow may bleat for the recent — 

The new, love-untutored will pine. 
But I'll have no new while the frequent is you, 

For passion is mellowed like wine. 



THOSE WERE THE DAYS 

Those were the days — the sun and the moon. 
The morning, the night and the still afternoon; 
The breath of the pines, and the breeze of the sea; 
The god that was I, and the nymph that was thee. 

Time was when on in the depths of the wild 

Like a dryad you fled, and a challenge you smil'd : 

As the God mad for Daphne, sped on by desire, 

I'd o'ertake you, and there in Love's pow'r we'd expire. 

The late summer sun ran his course overhead; 
Unnoticed the stars in the skies reigned instead. 
Ere we'd take our way back, where the eyes of the night 
Could not witness the heav'n of our further delight. 

Of Love we learnt love, when in mist she was born: 
The first tingling shock of her primeval morn; 
The sum of her ecstatic raptures of eld — 
All their individual blisses we held. 

We wove in our passion the sun and the moon; 
Entwined our embrace with the slant afternoon: 
The perfume of flowers, the breeze of the sea, 
With the song of the birds, were attuned, Love, to Thee ! 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON ii 

O Love, known to Youth, to itself only true, 
Untrammeled, intense, with no small ends in view — 
Oh, why is Time jealous to bring love an end, 
When Hours, his daughters, are kind to befriend ! 

I'VE COME TO SAY GOOD-BYE 

I've come to say Good-bye, my love, 
And from ourselves to screen us; 

For if I linger nigh, my love, 
Will Folly come between us. 

You understand why I would leave: 

Not that I love you less, dear. 
But that I prize you so, 'twould grieve 

Me sore it to express, dear. 

'Tis that I've learned to love too well — 

I had not come a-wooing, 
Had I but known a woman's spell. 

Could be my heart's undoing. 

I thought the time more quick would fly 

In Love's guise idly straying; 
But how a heart which plays a part, 

Becomes the part it's playing! 

I thought to dally here awhile. 

And go in ease forgetting; 
I had not counted on your smile, 

A sun on old worlds setting. 

Necessity's not changed a whit — 

Intention only alters; 
I needs must make the best of it, 

Altho' my heart here falters. 



12 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

Oh, I could love you on a crust ; 

But loving so were losing. 
To think ! I go because I must. 

When I could go for choosing. 

But counsel never spake in vain; 

The world was old a-borning; 
And Love at evening oft was slain, 

When need looked in at morning. 

Farewell! we've found that true love still 
Makes sure of future blisses; 

'Tis madness else that slights the will. 
And flies to kiss, then misses. 



METAMORPHOSIS 

We may pine for the things that we haven't, 
And of those that we like we may dream ; 

Yet we only can float thro' this humdrum 
And greyish old world with the stream. 

And our minds may resemble the starling. 
That wings from the earth to the blue; 

But back we must come to the mundane 
And all things pertaining thereto. 

Too late did I see her to own her — 
Too late did we each feel the spell. 

For Life had already laid rigid 
Our lines and our fealty as well. 

So a man I must live in a man's world. 
And, as others, grasp love while she flies; 

But the ache for the one that's denied me. 
In a turbulent heart never dies. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 13 

And still daily the mask, long acquired, 

Dissembling an outwardly calm, 
We must wear and distill from forced laughter 

The poison our souls to embalm. 

Plow I sicken of all the dissembling, 
And shrink from a world hard as steel. 

Oh ! for once to ride forth on an impulse 
And crush her with love that was real. 

Oh, had I but the knowledge of godhead. 

Or the secret of Life's alchemy, 
This body the stars to-night shining 

Transformed to a robin would see: 

And then I would be friends with the morning, 
And her fragrance would bear me aloft ; 

And the swaying old elm would embower 
My sleep, when the shadows fell soft: 

And the maiden in yonder low farmhouse, 
Whose eyes rival deepest blue skies, 

In the morn I would wake with glad music. 
And at dusk I would list to her sighs. 



PARALLEL ROADS 

i 

Our fates lie tangent to the end, 

And never a meeting show ; 
My thoughts surge warm 'neath the mask of friend, 

Belying that name of snow. 

My word unto another's pledged; 

And only my word I own: 
But now my soul in its growth, full-fledged, 

Will never a lie condone. 



14 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

Oh ! what are walls twix lips of fire, 

To duties and vows that rend 
Fond hearts from heaven and earthly desire? 

And smile as you can — a Friend ! 



SHIP OF PASSIONATE THOUGHTS 

My thoughts take ship and o'er your perfect bosom 
sail; 

My hopes take wing and heavenward are in flight; 

My heart is new for just one glimpse of light; 
My lips are dumb, for language proves of no avail. 

I must unlearn the old and find some higher lore 
To scale the heights on which your beauty lives: 
Such glory to the heart its message gives. — 

My eyes are closed — mere sight can understand no 
more. 

Deep in the heart oft wells a strain of melting tone, 
But which the mind cannot translate to earth; — 
With my whole being do I feel your worth, 

Yet I have not a medium to make it known. 

My soul, new found, is cradled in your mystic eyes; 
My thoughts are pilgrims bound unto your shrine: 
And, leaving me, they are no longer mine — 

My thought — my soul, my hope — within your power 
lies. 

This night's a gem, and from all others radiant 
gleams — 

Lack-lustre they in that they held not you. 

My mind is touched with Fancy's ruddy hue — 
I cannot think in thoughts, I can but think in dreams. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 15 



THE GUIDING STAR 

'Ts she real — is she real?" to my soul I cried; 

And my soul answered back, " As a star, — 
That high in the heavens doth gleam for thee, 

As dazzling, as bright, as far ! " 
"Is she good, is she kind?" — the oracle said, 

"Can bodies celestial be ought? 
A star and a goddess can do no wrong — 

Her kindness is given if sought ! " 

Then straight I'll build me an altar and incense 

I'll burn, and I'll load it with myrrh; 
I'll be suppliant, priest, and acolyte. 

And sacrifice daily to her. 
As a mariner with eye on Areas fixt, 

Steering over a troubled sea, 
My gaze on a brighter star shall be, 

And I will be guided by thee ! 



AU REVOIR, AUF WIEDERSEHEN, FAREWELL 

You said, " Farewell " — and added, " Au revoir " — 
That night I gave you all my heart's devoir. 
You trembled as you sighed, " Farewell " — ah, me ! 
That fare is well that fares me back to thee. 

The one to French hearts sends a chastened pain; 
The like to Teutons' gives " auf weidersehen "; 
But oh ! what agony does that word spell 
The Anglo-Saxon lover's heart — "farewell!" 



i6 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

There's not a hope I breathe, but hopes for thee ; 
But Hope's a ship that sails uncertain sea; 
And where Hope flies, he sends back no report: 
We must ourselves lay siege before the court. 

So I return, ("farewell" gives that permit,) 
And watch your hopes, to learn the way they flit 
And if they intercept not mine, Pll search 
And capture all, and teach them where to perch! 



AWAY, AWAY BEYOND THE GRAY HORIZON 
IN THE WEST 

Away, away beyond the gray horizon in the West 
There is an isle of all isles the blest; 
All thro' my dreams I saw it floating on a purple sea, 
And thro' them Love a message bore to me. 

I sailed ! and by the memory of that rosy dream I 

steered; 
I sailed! and the sea-isle of my dream I neared: 
And guided only by that ardent token starred above. 
When day was quenched in shadow and in love. 

My snowy sails across the billows quickly bore me 

hence; 
And those rare perfumes of my dream from thence 
Afar-off welcome me; and in the gentle tepor where 
The semi-tropics gleamed, I sought her there. 

Like in my dream, on shore she stood, her arms out- 
stretched to me — 

The cypress grove enamored of the sea, 

Its amethyst shade caressing her — she smiled the 
smile I dreamed: 

The sea and heavens also smiling seemed. . . . 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 17 

My sea-isle Dream ! my sea-isle Beam ! the star that 

guided me, — 
That Star of Love, that trailed the way to thee, — 
Into its vernal orbit now, doth sigh in lyric strain, 
And argent sails my sea-isle seek again. 

Once more I come ! and in the cool of cypress shades 

I stroll 
With thee, while on unceasing billows roll. 
No more I'll face the orient sun to seek her vasty 

shore — 
My sea-isle Dream I'll hold for ever more. 



WHAT LIFE MEANS TO ME 

What does Life mean to me? — 
It means when the day is done, 
But a pair of gleaming arms ! 
And freedom from self on a breast 
Beating joy, or whose quiet is rest: 
This meaning is more clear to me 
Than that of the course I run, 
Or the precepts of the psalms. 

And life means this in the morn — 
And I feel as some light new-born, 
When the glitter of dew 
Is abroad with the new 
Night-forstered wild-flower scents: 
And the knowledge that near arouind, 
The dense stir of man can be found, 
Is zephyred from mind 
By the flower-loved wind. 
That's born where the nature-child tents. 



i8 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

And it means at noon all this to me, 

When my god and my life overhead, 

In his heated orb, 

All the mists absorb. 

And his clouds are weaving ahead. 

To cool on the morrow the lea: — 

It means but a swinging bed under the pines, 

With crystals of aqua afloat in the wines. 

And a life that is free, 

And a love that is Thee ! 

And when the occidental sun 

Has turned the sky into a nun^ 

And her rosary 

She tells to me — 

Let nunneries their nuns secrete. 

And let my thoughts and steps be fleet 

The tender one and dear to greet; 

As thro' the even new we stroll, 

Her deepest eyes into my soul; 

And impulses and beating heart 

That throb for me, with arms apart — 

Dear, sculptured havens for me made, 

When all the world is drowned in shade. 



THE CLOSED DOOR 

It is useless to deny you, 

For your spell is round me yet; 

Though the love I gave passed by you, 
And I struggled to forget. 

But my thoughts come crowding o'er me, 
Though I've tried to close the gate — 

God have pity ! still before me 
Looms the face I've tried to hate. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 19 

Lips that seemed a red carnation — 
I have sipped their honied death; 

And a subtle distillation 

Was the mystery of your breath. 

Oh ! the passion that I brought you, 
And the dreams I dreamed by day! 

Ah, to think ! a strong love sought you, 
And was rudely turned away. 

WHEN THE DAWN COMES 

All in a bright and rosy dawning. 

All in a fresh bediamoned morn, 
While yet the slanting rays of sunburst 

Floated on the scented airs, new born ; 
And the lark, first harbinger of daylight, 

As shooting up on glossy wings, 
Pours forth his artless welcome gladly, 

Ever higher sailing as he sings. 

So to my heart she brought the sunlight — 

So to my soul the morning brought; 
And like the lark, my love soared upwards 

To meet the light I long had sought. 
And thro' the night of years the music 

Of her pure being echoed thro' ; 
While swift the dawn of her affection 

Woke dulcet strains of rapture new ! 

A BOATING FANTASY 

Over the waters gliding, with the orb of night abiding. 

On the soft-heaving breast of the stream ; 

With a maiden bright to love you, and the twinkling 

stars above you — 
If ever in life a dream there be — this is my dream, my 

dream. 



20 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

We start our canoe where the river and streams 

Mingle together to murmur the themes 

Of the woodland, heard babbling along; 

And we drift with the tide, in a rhythmic glide, 

Like a song — lover's song: 

Till we float 'round the bend of the widening river, 

Where the trees on the shore in the zephyrs quiver, — 

Then we skim on the lake in a silvery wake, 

And drift thro' the night, like a bird's leisured flight, 

All the Summer night long. 

And the lake — mirrored lake, its calm bosom we break 

As its moon-loved expanse we explore; 

With the night — fragrant night, at its most perfumed 

height. 
Scented by wild flow'rs ashore. 

So we glide — gently glide, with the tide — flowing 

tide, 
And if ever a dream there be, 
This is my dream — my mid-summer dream — 
With the bright stars above, and the maiden I love 
On the lake's placid bosom to be. 
And I would that my life, sans all trouble and strife, 
Could always be half so free. 



LIKE YOUR FACE EACH SEASON'S FLOWERS 

Like your face each season's flowers — 

I have seen it once in tears, 
Violet, bathed in dewy showers. 

Jewel of the springing years. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 21 

I have seen it wreathed in gladness, 

Rosy as the bud of June ; 
There, a columbine soft sadness 

Vigiling the pallid moon. 

Oft the gay and warm alluring 

Of the gladiola there; — 
Flower-maid for me enduring, 

Flower-love to me how fair ! 



IMPOSSIBILITIES 

I CANNOT bring you costly blooms; 

I cannot drive you forth in state; 
I cannot bring you from the looms 

Their priceless weaves, of hues ornate, 
To drape that lovely form. 

I cannot cover you with gems. 

That IVe seen sparkle on that snow; 

Nor can I crown with diadems 
That lustrous hair that bind me so 
Within its meshy storm. 

I cannot think that Plutus holds 
The mystery within those eyes: 

Yet Reason rocks when he enfolds 
That loveliness, as rightful prize. 
Complacent, smug and dumb. 

I cannot bear you overseas, 

In floating palaces of steel. 
But some day you may tire of these. 

And wake to wish to thrill and feel 
Love's touch, — then bid me come. 



22 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

INTERCHANGEABILITY 

(Suggested by the loveliness of .) 

Could the lilt of the bulbul be liquefied, 
Or the madrigals of canaries distilled, 

Or the pearl-notes of robins and thrushes redyed 
To Olympian nectar, that gods have enthrilled — 

I would quaff not of these when the toxicant rare 

Of thy lips I could pilfer, so delicate fare. 



If all of the flashes, scintillant and rare, 
Of all of the brilliants in Gaea that hide, 

And the softening lustres testaceans bear 
In their caskets that deep in the seas abide. 

Were into one poem of light to arise, 

'Twould be as the moon to the sun in thine eyes. 



If all of the south-airs from blossoming field, 
That call into life the song of the lark — 

If the flowers themselves were their essence to yield, 
That my senses did never such beauty remark, 

A quintessence of all would but be an alloy 

To the garden that is in thy hair, my Joy! 



If from all that is beauty and all that is fair. 
Could some exquisite Galatea be born. 

With the zephyr for breath, — an ideal so rare. 
That had failed e'en the poet's full mind to adorn, — 

Nor could envy my heart for Pygmalion feel. 

When I drink of thy charms, till with excess I reel. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 23 



THIS IS THE FLOWER YOU GAVE ME 

This is the flower you gave me. 

Plucked from its lowly bed — 
To my pleadings, a light kiss as sequel, 

Then like a gazelle from me fled. 
In frightened confusion and blushes 

You sped thro' the slant afternoon, 
'Cross the garden redolent of lilac, 

In that whilom, sweet blossoming June. 

These pages betwix have enfolded 

This blossom you gave me that day, 
As I yearned to impress you so closely. 

When from me you fluttered away. 
Months — years have elapsed since that twilight, 

(Ah, the thought still is lilac-perfumed!) 
And I o'er the wide world have wandered. 

By your haste and your diffidence doomed: 
But e'er thro' my dreams was the music 

(Like robin's first pellucid strain) 
Of thy voice, wafted over and over, 

Till my steps sought thy bower again. 

Then my heart felt as earth looks in Springtime 

In the May, lilac month of the year; 
Nay, my heart, my whole being seemed pregnant 

With a hope that shall live or die here. 
In my dreams, said I? — and in my wakings, 

Thy words and thy form did confuse. 
As a glimpse of some houri celestial, 

Which I felt, that I grasped for — to lose ! 

And my passions and faculties teeming. 

As I opened these leaves and beheld 
Your present, sweet gift from the garden, 

Which I fancied your favor impelled — 



24 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

Would blot out all else save your image, 
And my thoughts, as my steps, flew to thee, 

Only faster — incredibly faster. 

For my pace covered ocean and lea. 

It mattered not whither my footsteps 

Itinerant turned to the West, 
To the South, or the East, or the North — 

For my mind and my body no rest. 
In the land of perpetual snows. 

In the land of undying sun, 
Did thy memory e'er like a phantom precede 

My steps, till the journey was done. 

And now at your side 'mong the lilacs. 

As erstwhile I wander again, 
And my anguish and passion as sunlight 

Is clear, say it be not in vain ! 
For the scent of the lilacs inflame me, 

As the perfume that floats from your hair- 
Oh! your bosom is heaving — you love me! . 

Let me rest my head evermore there. 



SONNETS 



THE LANGUAGE OF MEREDITH 

The finished vehicle, " the gath'ring, choice, 
Of languages," the crown of human speech : 
How he doth shape it to the use of each 

And roll its music to some fair god's voice. 

Those mental phantoms, that to words are sealed, 
Which we can feel but give no body to. 
Those vague, dim images that flitter thro' 

The region of " fine shades," stand forth revealed. 

Interpretative wizardry supreme — 

Nought's hidden from your comprehensive art ; 
Surprising thought itself you give it form; 
And diff'rences too delicate to seem 
To have existence even in the heart, 
Here find expression tangible and warm. 



SHELLEY 

AcTAEON-LiKE thou'st lookcd on Beauty nude — 
But yet more fortunate, and showed her where 
Her quarry lay. And Titan on the bare 

Caucasian mount a while of blind ingratitude 

Wert banished, by the jealous pow'rs that stood 
Before the gates of Light; but ent'ring there 
While stupor glazed their eyes, you caught the flare. 

And bore to earth, which to a beacon woo'd. 

None saw thee die — in sooth thou didst not die; 
But Cleobis to blest Elysium, 

Unconscious of all pain, wert carried thence. 
By all-approving Juno from on high, 

For filial bearing Truth, when she would come 
To temple in men's souls — thy recompense. 
27 



28 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 



ON READING DICKENS 

Affixed with th' seal, the same as scriptures e'en, 
All prophet-writ, inspired from on high. 
Surcharged with forces that can never die — 

As patent to posterity, as green 

As days that hath the blest transcription seen; 
And to Affliction, in her grief doth lie 
Divinest comfort; to the kindly eye 

Of Happiness, a joy most sweet and keen. 

Speak'st thou of tears, the tears immediate flow; 
And be there sympathy within thy heart. 
Then is the soul of sympathy laid bare: 
Or humor lurking on Dan Cupid's bow 
You spy and joy, and roguishly impart 

To a ready world, the blest infection there ! 



MAURICE HEWLETT 

I KNOW you not — your bulk, your self, your mien — 
Your less persona know I not, nor care; 
But that which animates the mold — the fair, 

Your greater all-emblazoning — the keen 

Yet soft-insighted kinship with the green 

And fragrant nature, and her workings there 
In human breasts, — your most peculiar care, — 

I know. This all of you I've met, serene. 

This only consequential, in the white. 

The silent forum-square of harnessed thought: 

Before that You I've sat far in the night. 

And learned some simple truths — the difference 
made ; — 
Truths, which in their simplicity would aught 

Had been o'erlooked but for your timely aid. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 29 



THE BRIDAL WREATH 

Sweet oranges, tart apples and ripe pears — 

AH luscious fruits this wreath its presage makes; 
From this, your bridal eve, its symbol takes 

Of fruits unstinted, perfect wedlock bears. 

But ware the weeds insidious and tares, 

Which in the Garden sep'rate interest wakes 
Of rapid growth, until their vile weight breaks 

The shoots, which crave but sun and fost'ring airs. 

One love-plant in the garden of two hearts 
Well nurtured, in the seasons' round, creates 
A paradise of undreamed, flow'ring trees ; 
Each in its fruit, a new-found joy imparts — 
Some tart, of blessed sting, the predicates 

Of those more frequent joys which nod with Ease. 



SERIOUS MELODIES 



AGAMEMNON TO THE ASSEMBLED HEROES 

Comrades, defenders of the common hearth, 
Assembled heroes of our scattered tribes, 
A common cause has made us brothers more 
An alien insult to resent as one. 
'Tis not so much the prize we would regain — 
For that belonged but to a single one — 
The crime concerns us all: an alien race 
Spits venom in our face beneath a guise 
Of Friendship, and hurls defiance light 
In broad abuse of hospitality. 

We're not a race to sit supinely by 

And see our high prerogatives denied. 

Or honor trampled, with impunity; 

For are we not of kings, and kings ourselves, 

With whom our fathers when the Age was Gold, 

The gods themselves on equal terms have striven? 

There is an instinct in the most of us 
That holds some things as sacred, and not we 
Alone, but all the world some similar view. 
Hold fast; and as the world grows on become 
Our morals: those things that our kind 
Are not to do — the codes drawn up by one consent, 
Or laws, or actions, speech, or thoughts in negative: 
For what 's devised and which expedient. 
According as the aging years have ordered 
For common weal, to these we all subscribe. . . . 
Our usages have here transgressed been — 
So foul th' evasion to our practised aims, 
That Vengeance in her majesty stands up 
And points the way to wrong. 

23 



34 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

The Hellenes are brave, and yet we go 

To meet as brave a foe. — The tide of strife, 

All fluctuate, may not all tend on strength. 

The gods forfend that we, who are about 

To struggle with our bodies to the end. 

At this period, before their sacred fanes 

In honor to them, should not call down 

Their sanction — their favor to our cause, 

And on our own superiority. 

Tho' be it else, our text must yet be this: 

We fight to win, no matter how, we must ! 

Hold fast the gods ye have, and those ye lack 

Respect, conciliate, to turn their wrath 

To mildness, — for mortals cannot deign 

To slight strange powers just because they're strange; 

Respect is sometimes greater far than worship, 

In that it gives an outside view which worship 

Is generally blind to, which oft in 

The object will inspire a tolerance 

And love that 's from the worshipper withheld. 



The cause is ours, and tho' we may not snatch 

The prize that blinded eyes unused to such. 

But still on conquest bent we sail the seas. 

Because the gods have reason given us. 

We fight to win, and must, no matter how ! — 

If that our strength prove less, and numbers weak, 

Let Craft glide in, and Stealth her cautious step 

Make way thro' slumbers of the strong. — We have 

Among us those, our brothers, who were known. 

When wearied with the unavailing swing 

Of axe and sword, to transfer battle to the realms 

Of mind — the wily paths of stratagem. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 35 



LAST WORDS OF A KING OF SEA-VIKINGS 

Take thou my body when its soul is sped — 
The unmixed issue of old vikings, dead — 
And place me fair amidships on my staunch 
And, to my foot, familiar vessel — launch 
My bier aquatical upon the deep. 
So loved in life, that now my heart doth weep. 
And fiercely crave its wild accustomed joys, 
No more for me — no more my love employs ! 



The long adventuous cruise, no more, alas ! 

The shooting thro' the fiord or the pass 

Of rapid waters on to fair broad seas, 

And catching in the hollow sail the breeze, — 

The blessed gods have sent, — and wafted far 

To where strange lands and much new treasures are, 

In savage keeping so unfit to stay, — 

By sword or barter vikings bear away: 

Rich stuffs and gleaming stones, for one so fair, 

A queen o'er many holms, with burnished hair; 

To whom o'erladen back the waves I'd curb, 

And find my recompense in eyes superb. 

For oh ! to wander and afar to roam, 

If only for the joy returning home! 

The still night dash on shores inimical 

No more ! and feel the mounting blood as fall 

The battle-axes on the dastard foe 

And pirates, who the lone craft too well know. 

No more the grapple on the deck to feci. 

Or hear the crash immediate of steel ; 

Or know the shock of lance on buckler strong — 

The mad intoxicance, when in the throng 

The foe most cherished to your heart alone 



36 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

You see, and being seen, the longing grown 

To godlike passion, each to each fight thro' — 

The meanwhile shouting vain bravadoes new — 

And gain the side of each, devoid of mace. 

Or knife, and pause, and smiling in the face 

Of each, while noting the advantage sought — 

Then hugged so close, as in a unit caught, 

A limb to limb, a heart to heart, the fight 

Not ours, but with a personal delight, — 

Such strong attraction two in hate oft blends. 

Which had been love, had they but met as friends: 

A rivalry to supersede in kind, 

According as the meeting is designed. 

Opinion is the line which separates 

Our strong regard to loves, or active hates. 

No more the crash of stem on stern pursued, 
Or feel the sting in rival's war-cry rude; 
Or know the fierce, wild joy when pressed to shore, 
To turn the tide to rout — no more, no more ! 

So take my body when its soul is sped — 
The unmixed issue of old vikings, dead, — 
Befitting let me lie in simple state. 
Of nothing save my arms and shield ornate; 
And place me fair amidships on my staunch 
And, to my foot, familiar vessel — launch 
My bier aquatical at ebbing tide, 
And let it drift majestic to the wide, 
Unfathomed West, when pales the day. 
Whose lamp shoots high its occidental ray. 
Into its mighty silences sublime 
And palpable, unmarked by unconscious time, 
I'll drift; the soft caressing swish of brine 
Familiar, 'gainst the side of seasoned pine, 
Of my most fitting bier, my only dirge. — 
And this, my mortal casement, then shalt merge 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 37 

Itself with all that calm infinitude 
Of sensate mysteries — that far off brood 
Eternal — and their secrets shalt they own 
To Death, that to the quick remain unknown. 



THE SONG OF OLD MEN 

Our hoary heads the press of years have borne; 

Our tired hands are hard and labor worn ; 

Our feet are weak, and care not for the race ; 

Our bodies slight, and wish nor power nor place. 

Our eyes are dim, and see nor plain nor true 

Those outward things, those things we once held to; 

For they have lost their charm, and caring not 

For them to longer see, our eyes forgot 

Their function genitive, relearning now 

Pre-natal gifts, the gift to dream and how 

To see in this rare twilight things within. 

The more we inward look, the more akin 
To that great Mystery we feel, and move 
Familiar in those fields of dreams, which prove 
Not all of dreams, and lead us to the brink 
Of Prophecy. 

Oh, days we sit and think 
Strange thoughts, and wish for limbs and ways of youth 
To make them live. But oh, what joy for Truth 
To see behind, and not be dazzled by 
Her goddess front. We have walked round and nigh 
Her sat in calm. We could not in our prime 
Receive her fuller counsel, rushing by, 
Nor far off worshiping her, for our time 
Was for the outward look, and lofty eye. 



38 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

Her eye is lofty, but her counsel low, 
So low that she will to the hovel go 
And be at home. . . . 

But oh, the sunlight here — 
How she doth love it. And without a fear 
For what's to come, here we'll tarry with her, 
And watch a few more Springs the Summer stir. 
To fullness ; and with Fall's decrepid Sun 
Pass to our Winter, as the year has done. 

But 'tis good to sit with folded hands in rest: 
Our feet are weary after the long quest; 
Our heads are hoary with the weight of years; 
Our eyes are dim, but not the dim of tears: 
For youth is stress, and hard the fight oft goes, 
And life is sweetest just before its close. 



A ROCKY MOUNTAIN SUNSET 

'Tis autumn — and adown the Western sky, 

Bright Helios creepeth wearily to sleep; 

Nor to an ill-earned rest, with radiance dimmed. 

Doth he pursue his solitary way 

His face to hide beyond the horizon. 

But, yet, behold ! He leaves a rich reminder 

Of his presence fading fast: for look! — upon 

The looming hills unto the East, his smile 

Is still perceived upon the peaks which seem 

To swimming eyes, a mass of molten gold. 

And here, observe the eastern ether, where 

Abide the lingering clouds that fringe the sky — 

A fleecy, closer sky, — like lace upon 

A princess' dainty kerchief, all aglow 

And painted by the ruddy brush of Sol. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 39 

But now a purple craft with silver sails, 
Glides o'er a golden ocean to a port 
Of lavender; — and there a crimson curtain 
Parrhasius-like, some other picture hides. 
And yet a yellow dragon picks his way 
Along a trail of blood. 

But now these glories 
Fade, until a numerous short-lived shafts 
Of gold shoot upward, and, in their recess, 
Discover stars, tho' faint, in early eve, 
As if to peep, before it disappear. 
Upon the vari-colored phantomime. 

And winds, which th' tardy Summer had belated. 
That all the day had cycloned thro' the gulches. 
Die away with the expiring sun. 
And leave the even clear, and still, and calm. 



I. 

NOBLESSE 

And not apart from hidden stress 
Shall lay your ways, not all of ease, 

But conscious joys must learn to press 
From out the process meeting these. 

'Tis ever that the nature raised, 
Some higher than an obvious scale, 

Is for a higher tax appraised 

From out its Fullness for the frail. 



40 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 



n. 

ENVOI 

One life, one soul is given each; 

An even start. — With us doth lie 
What inequalities we reach, 

Which stamp the lower from the high. 

And lacking judgment of our kind, 
When isolation rules our course, 

Our motives some sure level find: 
We feel our weakness or our force. 



JOHN HAY 

Behold ! a star peeps out, and in a few 

Swift changes of the moon becomes a sun — 

A planet fixed, invariable, undimmed : 

All others seem, in that same firmament. 

But asteroids, but comets, where they shine 

Upon our mortal sight their little day. 

Then fade and die away : — still, while they live. 

The brightness of your ray in a penumbre 

Envelopes them, and slow they circle 'round 

And 'round the source, reflecting but the beam 

That they cannot absorb. 

All forms of worship. 
All religions, come and go — and some 
Are now forgotten ; and some, whose forms 
Are still with us, shall die; and others shall, 
Upspringing, hold their small ephemeral sway, 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 41 

Then fade away and predecessors join. 

Yea, all shall die and be forgotten, save 

That idle pantheism which had birth 

In playful fancies when sad Sappho mourned 

In strophes that were sweeter far than mirth. 

For Phaon inconsiderate; when blest 

Theocritus wore laurels on that brow. 

Whence emanated sprightly thoughts which gave 

To coevals and to posterity, 

Most sweet, most fair, unpresciented joys. 

Yea, all shall vanish, save this poetry 

Of dogma, and this dogmaless religion. 

That to the skies hath been translated, where 

No mortal with a worship in his soul, 

At night can see, and, seeing, worship not. 



So you, in statesmanship empyreans, 

With some few chosen ilk, will scintillate 

And evidence the triumph of a skill 

Athwart the night of years to wondering eyes, 

Who there in vain shall strive to consummate 

Like ends, upon an old and dry oblique, 

And fail : for off the bright ecliptic path 

They've strayed — become besodden in a mire 

Of futile and polemic prose, when swift 

Their aims could be encompassed by that ease 

And poetry of worth, — by them contemned 

As puerile and ancient and attrite. 

Yea, when in years to come, when careless time 

Shall quench, obliterate effulgency 

Of self-directed brightness, then shalt gleam, 

With steady radiance, an orb of calm 

And condign beam, in foremost rank aligned, 

Among his fellow stars — unquenchable! 



42 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 



OVERHEAD AT THE SHRINE 

". . . And Beauty is where Beauty most 
Unconscious of herself doth lie; 

For she, like Worth, need never boast 
To make her patent to the eye. 

" No nebula across the face 

Of Luna, like some mystic bird, 

Has passed unnoted on its race. 
And left the watcher lone unstirred. 

" And no iota of the truth, 

In any diverse form that springs, 

Is lost when age supplants its youth, 
But goes to swell the Soul of things: 

" For stumbling on some desert flow'rs, 
Now withered, shaking on the stem, 

The beauty of their early hours 

You see and scent, while spurning them. 

" And Speciousness may deck in vain 
For those who know where Beauty lies; 

And in Art's name she's doubly slain, 
When her Sham to interpret tries. 

" In simple themes she shows her face. 
And coarseness, leisured, passing by. 

So long a stranger to her grace. 
Offends her with a travesty. 

" He loveth Beauty most who doth 
Most honor to her. He who binds 

Himself to her by early troth. 
Her oracle himself he finds. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 43 



"And not a life of numbered years 
Lives Beauty's prayerful devotee, 

But unto winging ages bears 
His soul's immortal constancy. 



OH, HOW I GRIEVE FOR EVERY SUMMER 

Oh, how I grieve for every summer — budding May, 

July's mature, 
The fragrance of untrodden byways — Oh, that these 

things could endure ! 

Often have I strolled with memory duplicating present 

scenes, 
Stretching arms out to a picture of a lavish world in 

greens : 

Of a world, that afternoon-time seems to lull, by 

slumber won ; 
Silent in a wealth of beauty, — swooning in a golden 

sun. 

Yearning lone and small to grasp her, or to fuse one's 
soul with All ; 

Broken by her stern indiff'rence, heeding but her mys- 
tery's call. 

O days of August and September, O Summer days ! 

O Summer days ! 
The smiles you brought I give you tears for — the rare 

may come, but never stays. 



44 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 



COURAGE 

Working away without hope, toiling away in the 

dark — 
Nought to encourage you, all to discourage you. 

Burdened with life's every cark; 
Few of its joys and its smiles, no moment for even 

despair; 
For sympathy yearning, from toil to work turning — 

This only are few made to bear: 
The few most selected of Fate, whose hearts hear their 

destiny's cry ; 
For Work's sake just working, with brave soul un- 
shirking — 
This, this is of courage most high. 

A SPRING SONG 

In my heart I hear a calling — 

Voices soft that sing; 
And I scent an air enthralling. 

With its joyous sting: 
" To the wildwood," is the burden — 

"Fields are bourgeoning;" 
And they lay on me and girden 

All my soul with Spring! 
Spring, Spring, rapturous Spring! 

Birds from the South on the wing; 
Spring, Spring, ecstasy bring. 

Palpitant, clamorous Spring! 

Hear the cataracts' wild thunder — 

" Spring is here ! " they shout ; 
And the violets meek from under 

Grasses new look out. 
At my heart I feel the message — 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 45 

There I hear her song, 
Seeking newer things that presage 

Her, I rush along! 
Spring, Spring, rapturous Spring! 

Birds from the South on the wing; 
Spring, Spring, ecstasy bring, 

Palpitant, clamorous Spring! 

THE HEART'S WINTER 

As is the earth, my hopes are buried under 
Ice and hard snow and skies unpromising; 

Bleak desolation and the ill-wind's plunder — 
Earth and my soul are one in their lost Spring. 

And as the earth, benumbed and prone and cheerless, 
Must dream of late importunating flowers, 

Though Hope is dead, her sighs breathed for the peer- 
less. 
Warms not to nearness snowy-leaden hours. 

So with my heart, where late and lone supreme you 
Grew and were all — how vanished, oh, how gone ! 

Though in the blankness, cold, I still can dream you — 
Shall my heart see a Summer further on? 

DESTINY 

Where the surf breaks in white flakes, 

Along a rugged shore, 
Where the rock strips, of wrecked ships, 

At low tide show a score; 
On a point, bare — remote, where 

The wind has never died, 
Stand a lost pair, a girl, fair — 

A man, borne to her side : 



46 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

A thousand leagues between them lay when first they 

put to sea; — 
Two wrecks have made them one upon this shore of 

destiny. 

In a dense square, a worn pair 
Were passing on their way, 
And by mere chance, a quick glance 

They each exchanged that day; 
But the swift throng, its tide strong, 

Had swept them far apart — 
Yet a hope lies in lone eyes 
That daily scan the mart: 
And when hope faded, sick in soul, for health they seek 

the sea; 
A white-winged ship on summer waves, its deck their 
destiny. 



HURRIED LINES WRITTEN IN AN OFFICE 



To F C 



The test of Friendship is the test of Time; 
The years are hers, but moments e'er suffice 
To bribe the rest. For those that sing in rhyme 
With one's own soul, its melodies entice. 

The sands of Time run slowly out and leave 
A residue of hope : — the hope that turns 
To those that nearer stand in subtle weave 
Of understanding, that the full soul learns. 

The champac odors of an eastern glade 
Bring thoughts of passion and the short night's thrill; 
The wild thyme of the hills, in fragrance staid, 
We calmly gather to be sensed at will. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 47 

The rose-red pleasures of the fleeting year 
Pass on with those that o'er the moments reign ; 
The hours of laughter are to Friendship, dear, 
As gaudy blooms to amarinth's unchange. 



THE MOUNTAIN KING 



I GAZE o'er the desert, the valleys and sea — 

I note the approach of the storm ; 
I hear the winds roar, as they sweep the land o'er — 

I watch the black clouds as they form: 
I peer as they gather in battle array, 

And deafening echoes I ring, 
To the thunder's loud clash, and the lightning's bright 
flash,— 

For I am the Mountain King! 



I greet the first rays of the sun on his rise, 

While still the world darkened doth lie; 
My towering peak the wild eagles seek, — 

Majestic and rugged as I. 
All day they will soar in search of their prey, 

And, burdened at dusk, homeward wing: 
And the sun in the West looks his last on the crest 

Of the hoary Mountain King. 



Sometimes a mere mortal to scale my face tries 

Then is my great heart on fire: 
I quiver and shake, his destruction to make. 

And bury him under my ire. 



48 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

And e'en the wild beasts that prowl on my slopes, 
Give voice to the fears that upspring 

In them as they flee, when my passions I free — 
For I am the Mountain King! 



LOW IN THE WEST CREEPS THE SUN 

A Lullaby- 
Low in the West creeps the sun — 
Creep to your nest, little one; 
Creep with the birds into rest, 
Peacefully sink into sleep on my breast. 
Softly the wind falleth down; 
Still are the birds in the crown 
High in the elm trees, and calm 
Settles the night like a balm. 

Tight in my bosom you're pressed. 

Foundling of Love's gentle quest; 

Deep in my bosom you go, 

Deep as Love's voice to the ear, soft and low. 

Father will bend o'er thee soon. 

When on the hill shines the moon; 

Peacefully sleep, little one. 

Slumber, the day now is done. 



IGNIS FATUUS 

Come wreathe the world in light. 
And let the stars sing for me; 

There is no gloom like night. 
Where Love's light fails to be. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 49 

Give o'er the dreams of high emprise, 
There are less lonely paths and green; 

The daylight in the valley lies — 

A kingdom where you'll reign as Queen. 

Give o'er the dreams of high emprise — 

Your kind in vanity is mired; 
This ignis fatuus will rise 

To taunt some others less desired. 

Give o'er the hectic flush of strife — 

Your kind is steeped in vanity; 
A woman cannot live man's life 

And keep her woman's sanity. 

The sex is marked, her duties planned — 
Preserve such loveliness in sphere: 

Let shine so that it will command, 
Its due respect and proper fear. 

Come, follow me, fair brave, 

And following, I follow thee. 
There still is time to save 

A Queen to some strong race to be. 

WHEN LIFE WAS ALL A DREAM 

As the years advance and age creeps on towards night. 
And the light begins to fade in eyes once bright. 
Then the thoughts of youthful days the mem'ry 

crowd — 
When Life's broad skies were blue without a cloud. 
In the heart was ever one on high enthroned, 
And to that image every thought was toned; 
And all was joy, so fleeting that it seemed 
A paradise not lived, but only dreamed. 



50 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

Tho' the hallowed past is gone beyond recall, 
Yet a fond regret at times o'ershadows all ; 
For we think that if the sun of youth was high 
Again for us, no cloud would stud the sky. 
And the joys omitted in our youthful haste, 
We'd have them in a rosy setting placed; 
But fond regret will ever tinge the theme 
Of thoughts of days, when Life was all a dream. 



INSCRUTABLE PROVIDENCE 

If pleasures were not moulded in pain. 

But pain in pleasure, 
We'd be apt to count our sorrows the gain, 

And joy the measure. 

So providence, inscrutable, wise. 

For every pleasure blest. 
Inserts the thorns in various guise 

To give our joys more zest. 



A WINTER SCENE 

Far-flung the ermine mantle covers Earth, 
So lately nude. All previous lay her trove 
Till Night from out her dark recesses wove 

The velvet fabric for her northern ^girth. 

The envious Dawn the veil of clouds away 
Strips mightily, and streaks with fiery red 
The shimmering whiteness Night so softly shed, 

Until it seems as if the Night by Day 

Fresh slain, were crimsoning the world with blood 
From new-made wounds. . . . Her low'ring 
hand-maids fly. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 51 

And solider, from his cold sparkling eye, 
Earth folds her spotless robe in gratitude. 

Hark ! on the frosty air is wafted low, 
But keen and far, the rhythmic jingle-ling 

Of lively bells, and o'er the firm hard snow, 
The crunching hoofs and easy runners sing. 



Think not of me: . . . 

Though 'tis my fate to swing perpetual censers here 

Before thy shrine on Memory's altar, surely some old 

kindly god 
From you will ineffectual rememberings forfend. 
The ghost of that pure loveliness that was your smile, 
The light enveloping your wondrous grace of move- 
ment, 
Like some embodied song, transcends all thoughts. 
And gilds the wings of loveless hours. . . . 

I have no joy save in the torture of the memory of 
you ! . . . 

Oh ! the delight of many perfect days that glided 

Into still more perfect nights — 

How gone — how wholly gone ! 

When to that fair, far planet polyonomous 

We lifted careless eyes and wondered if the sighs we 

sent her 
Were as musical and weighted as those which proved 
The anarchist to time-old thrones ! . . . 
How little heeded was the Muses' presence; 
How little guessed a haunting analogue. 



52 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

Change tears asunder and one heart is twain: 
Recollection, only recollection, with Tantullus unquiet: 
This, and vain regrets for beauty lost. 
I feel like Pan long standing in the far, dim solitude 
Of Delphian nights, with eyes unswerving on a star 
That harbors some bright, whilom companionable 

nymph. ... 
How like careless children in a violet dell 
Did we talk and dream of storied bliss, 
Set in some ancient frame; 
Unheeding golden hours and the living of a tale. 

The classic dews that drenched anemones beside a 
Grecian pass 

Were like to these — but not more fair; 

The note of some Illyrian bird was not more sweet 
than those we heard, 

When through the yesteryear we floated in a close- 
held dream, 

Unmindful of the dream in the living of it. 

How touched with fancy in an irreclaimable remote- 
ness 
Looms common beauties: 
Oh, that our beauties' faults should be their fre- 



quency 



How pales an Helen's name, an aspect of the sea 

Personified in Attic imagery; 

The pride of Elusinian victors, the undercurrent amour 

smiling through; 
The catch of breath at pictured Delos swimming 
In ethereal purple, bearing the twin hope 
Of Song, of Fancy and of Dreams — 
With a coronal of ecstasy, and a legacy of thrills — 
(All, all, sad, sweet things of eld, and the Wraith of 

raptures dead) — 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 53 

Beside the Real, the poignant Now, that 'tis gone — 

with you ! 
How vexatious to the living grasp — the Real 
Is only when 'tis past. . . . Oh, mortal fate, alas ! 
That cannot live Romance, but only remember it. 



THE SONG OF THE BELL 

I 

In my eyrie I have swung, 
Since this village, old, was young; 
Wild alarum's notes I've raised, 
When destroying fires blazed; 
And with cadence soft and calm, 
MufHed and with measured balm, 
For the wearied, passing soul 
To its rest, I sadly toll. 

And here I cling, and swing, and ring, 

With tidings of great glee; 
Or to and fro, and sad and slow, 

I voice the grief in me: 
Ding dong, ding dong — I sing my song, 

Or beat a measured toll; 
Now for the bride, in maiden pride. 

Now for the passing soul. 



II 



But a merry tune I ring, 
And the mellow echoes fling, 
While the wedding cortege stands 
Near the pledge of hearts and hands. 



54 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

And across the angry sea, 

Where the storm-tossed sailors be, 

Harsh and loud I raise my cry : 

" Treach'rous rocks are nigh — are nigh." 

And far and near, distinct and clear, 

O'er ocean, town and glen, 
I raise a peal of woe or weal, 

To suit the moods of men. 
Ding dong, ding dong — I sing my song, 

A jingle or a knell; 
Joyous and glad, sublime or sad, 

I sing the song of the bell. 



" CRAMMING " 

What is all this I hear about " Cram " ? — 
" The schools now are cramming too much ; 

My children can't stand the curriculum's jam 
Their strength is not equal," and such. 

Think you a brain an empty room is, 
In which you can pack just so much; 

And measured for that, and measured for this 
Upstacked, till the ceiling they touch? 

That spaceless room, it cannot be filled, 

Tho' laziness fains you 'tis full: 
Betrayed, oh, are we, our ambition is stilled 

By indolence's gentle pull. 

Blessed is he a stern mentor has — 

His nature or willful or led. 
Will yet in his youth, it may come to pass. 

Get inclines to where titans tread. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 55 

Oh, bad enough, when you're your own ward, 

Is blinding indifference to lore. 
But when unformed minds you have under your guard 

And sanction their puerile war, 

Capacity's killed, and habits of reach — 

The habits of reaching above 
For Flowers of Thought for the Vase — you impeach, 

And murder and maim, where you love. 

Countenance not the sweet, siren voice, 
That you know enough for your use : 

If in it you can't with the Eagle rejoice, 
Take care that you be not a Goose. 

The Eagle is keen, and the Owl, wise — 

Yet others beneath emulate; 
While trying your wings, pray you not to devise 

For your feather an Ostrich's pate: 

And sinking there in sands of conceit — 

Or self-satisfied mud — your head. 
That hunters for worth may guffaw at your feet. 

And take you all unprepared. 



THE TOREADOR 

Amid the uproar'ous din come the piccadores in, 

With hearts beating high; 
And in the expectant lull, ope the gates and the bull 

Asnort rushes by. 
See how his eye flashes fire, 
As on they goad him to ire. 
All around the bloody space, at a furious pace, 

Till the toreador in splendor draws nigh. 



56 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

How deft ev'ry charge he evades of the bull in his 
raids, 
When hard he is press'd; 
But soon will his Toledo steel, the bull's mad career 
seal, 
With Love's favors dress'd: 
Then in the thick of the cheering, 
Finds he the glance most endearing. 
From the eyes that softly speak, all he cares there 
to seek — 
To the toreador that victory is best. 



G^A'S APOSTROPHE TO DIAN 



At eve I scan the heavenly clan 

Thy gleaming form to find; 
And thro' the night, thy radiance bright 

A pathway trails behind; 
And as you blaze your silver rays 

Across yon astral fare. 
You light my way, with twilight day, 

For mortals that I bear: 
As steering homeward 'cross the sea 
Rely upon the stars, and thee ! 



2. 



And as you swing, constellars sing 

Celestial lullabies ; — 
A meteor flings its myriad wings, 

And to thy bosom flies. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 57 

r thy soft spell I, Endymion lie — 

To thy pale caress I rise; 
And my solitudes, where the ringdove broods, 

Is musical with sighs, 
Of those ilk-tinged souls that seem 
To haunt thy sacred fanes, and dream. 



And you behold, when shades enfold 

My airs impalpable, 
The countless sights I yield o' nights, 

Which Sol 's incapable. 
The wilderness, 'neath thy caress. 

An incense wafts to thee; — 
Fantastic tones, which day disowns, 

Takes on each shrub and tree: 
And only with pigments of shadow and light. 
Delineate traceries all through the night. 



4. 

By Venus gleaming, with love-light teeming. 

Thy entrance is proclaimed; 
By Jupiter — still statelier — 

Thy exit 's far declaimed. 
With gentle glance, as you advance 

To thy egressal dawn. 
From out the skies dost thou apprise 

Thy kin, the starry spawn : 
For the Lord of the heavens must rule supreme, 
With his greater light and ardent beam ! 



58 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 



5. 



And nights uncertain, when a curtain 

Across the sky is flung, 
Which hides thy vision in the Elysian, 

Where evermore it hung, 
That tender ether — my fair wreather — 

Grows chill in thy disdain; 
And bright Aurora finds my flora 

Drenched in tears of rain. — 
Tho' Uranus yesterday even was pied 
Wi' thy kin, in a Stygian hue now is dyed. 



6. 



Majestic queen ! from thee I glean, 

Beneath thy radiant smiles, 
A light as chaste, as that which graced 

The legendary isles. 
I watch thy light fade with the night, 

But my expectant gaze, 
Divinity, next eve will see 

You mount your orbed ways : — 
A Nike in chariot sped thro' the sky, 
To conquer the darkness of evening — and die! 



THE ARISTOCRACY OF EASE 

To doze and dream in the firelight's gleam, 

A book of verse upon the lap; 
A sonnet read, a lyric scanned. 
Contentment in each castle planned; 

A drowsy lull, a nod, mayhap — 
A dream in rhythm, ryhthm's dream. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 59 

What smiles from out the soul o'erflow. 

Transforming features that without 
So short a while ago, unblest, 

Austere and fixed by many a doubt, — 
Now godlike 'neath the firelight glow 
(To doubt and care the alkahest) 
That are to mortal eyes unknown — 
And conscious-caught but leave their throne: 
Mind-flow'rs foredoomed, unmarked, to die, 
Smile-elves that on a rustle fly: 
The which resembling practised smile 
As fairies to this fleshy pile. 

The wine of song, romance's touch, 
The gleam of fire enhances much : 
For in the Winter nested snug, 
Enthroned upon the hearthstone rug. 
When winds howl outward. Fancy's Spring 
Surpasses even Nature's thing. 

The veiled note of thrush is heard, 
(No note so sweet as Fancy's bird!) 
And blossoms burgeoning the fields 
Imaginary perfume yields. 

The chivalry, the loves of eld, 
From poets into song have well'd; 
And e'er the theme will tinge the dream 
That comes before the firelight's gleam. 

But give the laurel unto him — 

Not that he sings a stirring deed — 
But that he so usurp the whim 

Of who the strophies lilt and read. 
With such abandon that himself 
Become the storied prince or elf. 



6o POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

Vicarious pleasures, negative, 

Appeal more to the mind. 
Than positive, affirmative, 

So easier to find: 
For who can purchase that sixth sense, 

The faculty to feel 
What others dreamed in moments tense. 

That v^e enjoy as real? 

Who cares for action? — let him act 

Who for discomfort craves; 
Our lives of needed ease is sack'd 

By being action's slaves: 
Perform we may and still complain 

Denied the pause that 's yearned. 
But ne'er quiescency disdain 

Which doing well has earned. 
For only those in action keep 

Most clayey as to mind; 
And they alone all free from sleep 

Enjoy what gods designed. 

For ever ease has sired calm 

And grave, serene philosophies; 
E'er nursed 'neath brooding Musa's balm 

Nepenthe, are her poesies: 
Nor slothful ease of bland desires, 

Devoid of aspiration's leaven, 
But ease of quintessential fires 

Whose spell-born fruits reach up to heaven. 



TREAD LIGHTLY ON THIS SPOT 

Tread lightly on this spot! 

And o'er that raised mound, I pray you, stumble not: 
For here lies one who fought the Fight and lost — 
A puny Fame the stake, his life the cost. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 6t 

Oh, when will humankind their interests separate, 

From drudgery of work, from earliness of Fate? 

He slaved all out of time, 

He died whilst yet in early prime; 

He tried to force the fame 

That fitted best with riper years, 
By striving their late Work to do. — The Game 

He sought to take devours him behind, while 
straight in front he peers. 

Tread lightly on this spot ! . . . 

The rains that percolate to where his Mother's bosom 

hot 
Has him so close and irrevocably in hold. 
Can now no furthermore affect the temper of his 

mould. 
Save to accelerate with its insidious rot. 
Its seeming to the substance of his universal cot. 

Ah, yes, tread lightly on this spot, — 

And, near around so far the hedges stretch, do not 

With levity this calm enjoyable of Silence and of 

Grief 
Disturb ! to dissipate its sweet and grave influence 

brief. 
Few who may stand in summertime in such a place. 
Behind an olden church, with such an ancient grace, 
As if it stood in such a gentle town. 
In such a dreamy street forever, and disown 
A thrill of this? Its very Silence speaks 

And, with the heavy fragrance of its plants, breathes 

of another world. 
And here the dew, that longer all the flora pearled 
Most emulative of those human tears, to them well 
known, at even sooner seeks. 



62 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

But stay ! see where she slowly nears ; 
The tottering gate she opes, comes through, 

All in her — soon, too soon ! — her widow's weeds, while 
tears 
Her meshy veil, voluminous, bedew. 

She kneels (off in our corner, contemplative, screened 
By rhododendron bushes, kneel we too), 

And lifts her sombre front of woe, that weaned 
The sun of Joy from features early taught to woo 

The ever grave demeanor of a sorrow's brooding look. 

She gazes for a time on that raised book. 

And then its volume green she clasps, and soft 

And shaken come the sobs, that now her breast's ac- 
quainted much too oft: 

"O Father, why, O, why in his Ambition's prime, 

After in this bosom trusting him so short a tim.e. 

With all his aims, his goodnesses and faults, 

Why tak'st thou him from me? — that taking halts 

And makes me more than Dead, for I 

No further look with outward view, but sit with in- 
ward eye. 

O God, I know he did transgress thy natural laws 

By too much earth-ambition, — gave thy time of rest 
to it, because 

Of it it was a part; unquenchable endeavor in his 
bosom burned, 

Not only in that part allowed, but the whole Circle 
turned 

He into it: and yet thou gav'st him Death. 

O Lord, Thou knowest that he was my daily breath, 

(Such strange air do some women breathe, that none 
Can see what keep their love alive!) 

Yet Thou — Thou took'st him, God, because he was my 
Sun. 
And I, idolatrous, did, watching o'er him, thrive 

And grow in stature. . . . O God ! where'er he is 
would I 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 6^ 

Be with him now, tho' in the earth or sky ! 
Omniscient, O, Almighty Cruelty ! him give me back, 

I pray — 
No, I demand ! — Thou — " Come, O, come away. 



SPECULATION 

If in the eve of love, when Love loves love a-dying, 
I should draw nigh to you, as nigh as young love 

sighing, 
And as you drew life from my lips, you drew love 

flying- 
How would love meet with death? 



In all the cosmos there must be a sequent ending 

To each beginning; but how endeth love? Befriend- 

ing — 
Denying or defying, in o'erripe contending? — 
Fond love how perisheth? 

Of all who here hath suffered love who can who shall 

tell. 
How Love's fond heav'n declined into its practical 

hell; 
How came, how endeth and how when its coronal fell 
With Death into the past? 

When thinking of 't when scarce a yellowing year 

confesses 
The thrill of passion, wine that dewy lips impresses — 
Now lost to savour in the fragrance of new tresses, — 
How pleads in vain the last ! 



64 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 

How can the Soul but change when Love rules all her 

actions 
Since ever when he met her on the height, distractions 
Drave her, ere darkness dawned upon the world in 
fractions, 
And housed her in his manse? 

Like he who invites pity and contempt receiving. 
He who stands round and beckons Love entraps de- 
ceiving 
Uncouth self-love ; for Love is never coaxed, believing 
In lodgment but by chance. 



SONG TO PROMETHEUS IN WINTER 

Of Eld there came a cruel voice rushing, 

Uncertain, with an undisputed ban. 
O'er smiling heaths and thro' dim forests pushing 

His hard implacable sovran. 
"I am Winter, and my pact with Winds 

Runs on till Hecate's release." — 
And men crouched trembling, and with stricken minds 

They sacrificed to soften Dis. 

But one who walked with gods rebellious 

'Gainst vengeance on a race so weak. 
Heaven's anodyne stole, infidelious, 

And gave it men, and suffered on the peak. 
Of old the icy lips are wide to sift 

Bleak desolation on a happy earth, 
And frighten and dismay. — But men catch up the gift 

And his sharp breath unedge, 'mid peals of mirth. 



LIGHTER VERSE 



LAMENT OF THE UNIVERSAL LOVER 

(Ballade.) 

Oh ! what a lot of beauty flashes 

On our sight, from day to day; 
See how it thro' December splashes, 

Or calmly strolls thro' sunny May. 

It keeps you turning on your way. 
To see it all, if you'd miss none: 

How cruel the Fates — or laws — that say, 
Of all these I may have but one ! 

If I should wed, reduced to ashes 

Are my hopes, if ill we fay; 
Or fadge we well, yet Hymen's lashes 

Hold me from this one to stray. 

And if I prove not constant aye. 
That monster. Law, will prove no fun: 

How sad the dirge to me alway — 
Of all these I may have but one ! 

And if one single stays, he dashes 

Free to look as much he may; 
And free to make as many mashes. 

As the kind Fates to him play. 

But in this free-and-easy way, 
Might he not miss a brilliant Sun, 

While hiding self 'neath manners gay? — 
Of all these he may have but one. 

L'envoi. 

So must we choose, and, choosing, stay 
In wedlock, or in bachelordom. 

We want them all, so sweet are they ! — 
Of all these we may have but one. 
67 



68 POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 



SOCIETY'S REPLY 

(" Society doesn't realize, or care to realize, that it 
sets the example and other foolish people lower down 
in the social scale follow its lead. . . . The women 
can be seen in all the fashionable restaurants affected 
by the " smart set " drinking intoxicating liquors, not 
only when with male escorts, but without . . . ." 
A prominent clergyman.) 

We set the example ! — Oh, do we ? — what fun ! 

But we the job strongly contemn: 
To jobs some are born and achieve others one. 

And some have them thrust upon them. 

You say we indulge in the wine-cup too freely, — 

But who'd be a recharbite saint? 
You say that we women are tanks: — well, we really 

And truly assure we ain't. 

We move in a sort of theatrical glare: 

A cham. glass appears like a tub; 
And lenses are leveled continually there — 

We know it, forsooth, " there's the rub." 

We all have our foibles — of course magnified 

By jealous onlookers are ours; 
But just one faux pas from the place where we're tied, 

And the world is apprised in two hours. 

You charge us, we notice, with being immoral, 

And worshipping idols of " Dust." 
Oh, no, while some of us may be — er — unmoral. 

We're never the former, we trust. 



POEMS BY CAMPBELL MASON 69 

Now when slightest actions are watched every hour, 

One surely will " show off " a bit : 
If we'd find us playing to empty seats, our 

Desire to do things would flit. 



EILEEN 

A LASSIE transported from Munster's green sod, 
Has hit me right here, and she's hit hard, b' God ! 
Her father's from Dublin, her mother's from Cork — 
They jumped on a steamer and landed in York. 
The blood of ould Ireland's kings flows in her veins — 
The wee little foot av her just, when it rains, 
That's peekin' so dainty when she lifts her skirts, — 
A^d the thought that she isn't mine yet is what hurts. 

Some tell me that Frinch gurls is what takes the prize : 
Just wan look at Eileen and France you'll despise. 
And some like a Dutch or a plump German frau; 
But up ag'inst Eileen they'd dwindle, I vow. 
And if she refuses her honest spalpeen. 
When he on his knees sez, " Come be my coleen ! " 
No charms in another could I iver see, 
'Twould then be the same if I wed a Chinee. 



THE END 



HOV 29 1912 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

015 940 886 3 1 



